Technical Diffculties
by Halibel Lecter
Summary: Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. His dizziness got worse. His mind was yelling that he was an idiot for ignoring that taste in his mouth. “Aizen-sama… I-I need… to be excus—” Eyes slipping shut, Nnoitra crumpled to the floor. Nnoitra/Halibel.
1. Chapter 1

PRIMARY DISCLAIMER: I do not own Bleach. Tite Kubo owns Bleach in this world, where it is no more than fiction, and he's a pretty darn good mangaka... he even got our names right. And before I forget, also Viz Media owns Bleach. Sad, ne?

OTHER DISCLAIMER: This pairing is fiction. Really. Seriously. It has nothing to do with my pen name whatsoever. With that out of the way...

Thanks to the person who suggested the story's pairing and kindly worked out kinks in the plot: Rayna Lissesul, a close friend and fellow fangirl. Please take a look at her profile and read her stories; I promise you'll like them.

It was not Nnoitra's day. Not at _all_.

He'd never felt so bad in his life. This was worse than any wound he'd ever had, because eventually a wound would go away. A wound would go away courtesy of Inoue, leaving him whole, hale and hearty. This… whatever-it-was would not be going away anytime soon. That was for sure.

To top all that off, he didn't even know what it was!

All he could remember doing differently was going to the human world. It had been below freezing, raining like all heck and, though he'd felt a little bit cold, like he was going to admit that. So he'd even taken his shirt off to fight this time. He'd show that weather who was boss.

…Bad idea. Somehow, he'd never quite warmed up once he got back to Hueco Mundo—though something told him he should actually not be cold, he'd chalked it up to stupid human weather and left the issue alone for roughly a week, hoping it would go away on its own. All in all, things hadn't been too terrible.

Until today.

Last week, he had woken up with a horrible taste in his mouth. He'd figured it was due to something he'd eaten and shrugged it off, heading to the meeting scheduled for that day. It had been a worse and _worse_ day from there. He'd slowly noticed that his nose didn't feel quite right, and it was starting to affect his breathing... or was it the other way 'round? He'd been cold all over, ice-cold in fact, and his joints were beginning to ache. His throat felt funny. Something wasn't right, but he was the tough, macho fifth Espada. So he'd kept it to himself. For a good week and a half, if you counted the chilled feeling he'd had since he'd gotten back. But now…

He couldn't take it any longer. Nnoitra was starting to feel very strange, not anything able to be identified yet but just… strange. Like he was slowly being tugged out of the control-seat of his own mind. His ability to think slowed down, and just when it was starting to become irksome, said ability ground to a dead halt.

When Aizen-sama told the group to write something down, he found that his fingers could hold the pencil, and that was all. They could not write. He couldn't even scratch in the most basic kanji; his hands were weak and shaky and he wondered how long it had taken him to notice. Flustered, Nnoitra raised one hand to be excused, when suddenly he'd grown a little weaker. He tried to speak, but something wasn't right.

He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they were half-full of lead. He was all of a sudden dizzy, and the ache around his joints intensified. _Something is wrong,_ he thought desperately, but an Espada _never_ asks for help. He forced himself up, hoping he could escape before that became a possibility. Aizen glanced over at him.

"Yes, Nnoitra?"

Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. His dizziness got worse. His mind was yelling that he was an idiot for ignoring that taste in his mouth. "Aizen-sama… I-I need… to be excus—" Eyes slipping shut, Nnoitra crumpled to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to bleedblackwalz, for reviewing and also for convincing me to post this, as well as her sister XxAngelofDemisexX.

"Oh _damn_…my head…" Nnoitra opened his eyes and blinked a little, his vision adjusting itself to the darkness of his room. He was lying flat on his back, a position he hardly ever slept in, covers wrapped around him tightly and a lamp glowing in a far corner of the room. It was pretty bright, actually, but the rest of his room—probably the rest of his domain—was pitch-dark since it was night, so the lamp couldn't do much. He didn't remember having a lamp, he thought, much less leaving it on when he'd gotten back.

Wait… gotten back? He _didn't remember_ getting back. He remembered trying to ask to be excused, but after that, he couldn't recall walking back here or even leaving the throne room. Something had happened to him… had he blacked out? If so, who had carried him back?

Glancing around, his gaze settled on the floor, where the edge of a hakama could be seen. Nnoitra wriggled out of the blankets—they were too hot, anyway—and leaned over the side of the bed. He got the shock of his life, for there, curled up in a makeshift futon beside his bed, was Halibel.

Her hair was sticking up in a million different directions, and her collar was crumpled and folded down because she'd slept in her uniform. He blinked once, then twice, hoping she'd go away and it would be somebody else—Tesla, hopefully, because this would be just about as embarrassing with any other Espada. Alas and alack, however, she stayed right where she was, not stirring an inch.

'_Figures she'd be a quiet sleeper'_, Nnoitra thought to himself. Suddenly, however, he felt slightly sick. Sitting up in bed did not help the situation whatsoever. Squeezing his eyes shut, Nnoitra got out of bed and managed to stumble into the bathroom before his legs turned to water underneath him and he fell roughly on his knees, the nausea getting worse with each second.

He knew—and don't you look at me like that, you know exactly what I mean—he just _knew_ he was about to throw up. Gagging, he felt the blood drain from his face and knew how pale and green he must look. He felt himself begin to retch and blocked out the next few moments, until he opened his eyes, sitting in the floor, spitting bile from his mouth, his hair pulled back from his face by someone's hands.

_Wait a second... _

Nnoitra turned and faced Halibel, who had let go of him and was standing a few feet back. "What the hell are you doing here?" She grinned, staring him down.

"Well, no one else would take care of you, Nnoitra. And you were just so weak…" smirking, she leaned against the doorframe. "I was assigned to make sure you don't… you know… give up the ghost. Now come on."

Striding over, she picked him up and looped one arm around his waist, tugging his wrist across the back of her neck with her other hand and standing up. "You shouldn't sit on that tile floor any longer. It's too cold." Legs dragging along since Halibel was a good two feet shorter than him, Nnoitra let himself be helped back into bed, turning away and yanking the covers up to his chin.

"What's wrong with you anyway? You hate me."

"I don't hate you," replied Halibel, pulling him back up and handing him a glass of water. "I dislike you. Greatly. However, you're too weak to take care of yourself, and since you have such a terrible personality, not even your Fraccion would step in. Stark would have fallen asleep, Barragan would have forgotten who you were, Ulquiorra flatly refused, and everyone below you is too scared. Now drink something."

He jumped a little, too weak to do much else, as she sat down behind him. One of her shoulders fit neatly along the top part of his spine, supporting his back. It irked him a little that she'd just _assume_ that he couldn't sit up on his own—though, in truth, with this whatever-it-was he couldn't. He wondered briefly if somebody had poisoned him. It was a definite possibility.

Nnoitra tipped the glass forward and sipped some water, taking a little more until the taste of bile was gone from his mouth. He was strangely thirsty after that, and managed to drink down the rest of the full glass, placing it on the table beside his bed and shifting so that he could lie down.

He flipped onto his stomach and lay his head on his arms, eyes closing as he figured he might as well try to sleep. It was not to be; something was slipped into his mouth. Nnoitra moved his tongue around, trying to spit it out. It stayed in. He jerked his head back; it stayed in. He opened his eyes, grabbed the thing, and managed to yank it out of his mouth just as it beeped. Halibel smirked at him. She held out the thermometer that had been in his mouth so he could see the digital numbers.

"One hundred and three?" he queried. "So what?" Nnoitra turned over again, this time making sure to face away from her and her stupid smirk.

"So you have a fever," she replied, slipping into the bathroom. When she returned, Halibel carried a wet cloth. "Apparently you've been so _pigheaded_ and _stupid_ with all your chauvinistic ideals, that now you're very sick." She sat down next to him and began carefully washing his face to bring down his fever, tugging his eyepatch off in the process. "So you're going to get even weaker. How does it feel, Nnoitra?"


	3. Chapter 3

"How does it feel?! How the hell do you think it feels?!" Nnoitra was suddenly sitting up, despite being suddenly dizzy from the quick movement. He stood from the bed, throwing the covers off, and drew himself up to his full height. Ignoring the aches in his joints and the horrible dry burning in his throat, Nnoitra backed Halibel to the door of his room and stood there, leaning on the frame. She was just beyond the threshold, staring up at him with a deceptively neutral expression. Nnoitra was enraged. _How dare she?!_

"I feel fine!" he shouted. "Now get out! And don't you dare ever set foot in my domain again, Halibel! If you do, I'll put you in so much pain, you'll forget all about being turned into an Arrancar! I'll tear your arms off! I'll whip you bloody! You ever come back here again and—!" suddenly, Nnoitra's legs buckled underneath him, and he dropped to the ground. However, on his knees, he was only three inches shorter than Halibel.

"And?" she asked, smirking.

"And you'll wish you were dead! I swear it! I'll yank every joint out of socket, I'll gouge out your eyes bit by bit! Don't you ever cross me again, Ha—"

Nnoitra's threats died in his throat and were replaced by dry, wracking coughs that wouldn't stop. He felt his lungs tearing themselves to shreds—he'd purposely avoided sparring all week to prevent what he knew was inevitable, but this spell of pent-up coughing could _not_ have come at a worse time. He tried to stop, but couldn't.

Before he could do anything to keep himself from looking weak, Nnoitra was in the floor, his hands over his mouth, coughing out whatever air he was trying to gasp in. Blood spotted across his hands as he choked on his own breath. _Weak_, his mind shouted at him, but he couldn't do anything. It was out of his control.

By the time it was over, he'd been returned to his bed. Whimpering involuntarily, he wiped what he knew was blood from his hands and let the tears fill his eyes and run over. Who cared who was watching? He couldn't breathe. He hurt all over and he was sick again, dry-heaving into his pillow because he'd coughed so much, his head pounding and his face absolutely on fire, his hands and the rest of him cold as ice. This was agony unbounded, pain he'd never felt the equal of, and he was unable to control his own reaction. However embarrassing, humiliating and weak, this was first and foremost _terrifying_.

His throat only closed further as he realized that the only person he really despised for being stronger—and a woman, no less—was the one who'd picked him up and brought him back to bed. Nel had been pretty bad, he mused, but she'd never had this golden opportunity to lord her strength over him. As the pain gradually subsided, he began to plot the murder of both of them, only to be distracted when he felt something cold dragging along his hairline.

Nnoitra glanced upward, feeling himself being carefully turned over and repositioned a little. He blinked as a cool, wet cloth lathed across his eyelids, cleaning the blood from his lips and placing itself on his forehead. Halibel stared down at him, her eyes a little softer if he looked really hard, or maybe that was just the angle and the light. Definitely just the angle and the light.

"I get it. You're weak. Now stop trying to prove it." She pulled the cloth back, rewet it with a glass of water she'd drawn and placed it across his eyes. He sat up and reached for the glass, sipped from it and handed it back, the cloth pressed over his face to hide its color. "It's three in the morning, Nnoitra. Go to sleep."

He felt his eyes getting heavy now that he was sitting still. Trying to protest, Nnoitra reasoned, was useless with his throat in such bad shape. He sighed, relaxing a little and slowly lying back down, face turned away from Halibel as she went back to her own futon. He'd do as she said, just this once.


	4. Chapter 4

"Wake up, Nnoitra."

Cracking open his eyes, Nnoitra noticed Halibel standing over his bed, one hand still shaking his shoulder back and forth. "Come on. Szayel is here; he says he wants to examine you."

"What the f*** for?" Sighing, Halibel crossed the room to the door as she spoke.

"He wants to make sure you aren't contagious. Then they'll decide whether or not to quarantine you." She slipped to one side, allowing Szayel in before closing the door behind all three of them and locking it, assuring Szayel that should his life be put in danger, she would step in immediately. Nnoitra wasn't sure what he had to worry about, since he was so sick, but the Octava's fear made him feel a little better.

Szayel strode forward to the side of the bed, setting an old-fashioned black bag on the bedside table. He helped Nnoitra up and, sticking the top two ends in his ears, pressed a stethoscope to his ribcage. Nnoitra jumped back.

"Sh**! That thing's f***ing cold!" Szayel grabbed his shoulders and held him still. "Halibel, a little help?"

"What do you need?"

"_Traito_r," muttered Nnoitra. Halibel smirked at him before glancing back at Szayel. He loosened his grip on Nnoitra's shoulders to indicate that he wanted her to take over before picking up the metal part of the stethoscope again.

_A few minutes later…_

"Halibel, loosen your grip a little. I think all that pressing on his windpipe is messing with my results." The second Espada glared, kneeling on the bed behind Nnoitra with her right arm held rigidly across his throat.

"He's three feet taller than me, and you're making me hold him still. This is as good as it gets," she replied.

"Well can't you hold his chest instead of his neck?" Szayel reflexively leaned back a bit, already dodging the punch Nnoitra half-swung at him.

"And have him start acting like Hannibal Lecter and eat my face? No."

"B****, nobody would want to eat your face. It's all wrinkled an' leathery. Probably because you aren't gettin' any from Stark—"

"Take that back."

"Halibel! He can't breathe!"

Nnoitra gasped as the pressure around his windpipe decreased to allow him a little breath. Szayel looked flatly at both of them before repositioning Nnoitra so that he was sitting completely on the bed, at the same time instructing Halibel to move the arm around his throat to just under his shoulders. She flatly refused.

"Please?" he stared up imploringly, giving the stethoscope a halfhearted shake. "If my results are compromised, I could very well misdiagnose a very deadly human virus as the common cold! And it may be contagious…" Sighing, Halibel slipped one arm around Nnoitra's chest, the other anchored around his waist. "There now, that wasn't so hard." Ignoring their glares, the Octava sighed openly as he finished and wrote it in, examining a few other things before adding some notes. He sat on the edge of the bed and glanced over the results of his tests. His eyes widened. "Oh _no._"

"What?" Both of them glanced up as Szayel backed away quickly, his eyes never leaving Nnoitra. "Szayel? What the hell's wrong with me?"

"The flu! You have _influenza_, Nnoitra! It's terribly contagious! And I was breathing your air—my heavens, I may have to disinfect my own lungs!" He fumbled with the door locks, staring at them in horror.

"So if you know what it is… can you cure it?" Halibel released Nnoitra and got up from the bed, walking toward him. "Szayel-san?"

"No, I can't! It's a virus! It has to run its course and clear out of his system, and we can't do anything about it. And you probably have it, too, by now! The flu is an airborne virus… oh my good heavens…" he whispered, suddenly realizing something.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm going to have to quarantine _both_ of you!"


	5. Chapter 5

Thank-you to grimjaww and Ink-pen 33 for reviewing. Good fortune and much happiness to the both of you.

-.:oOo:.-

"You're… doing what?" Halibel stared across the room at Szayel, her mouth hanging open in shock. "What did you say?"

Szayel was already at the door. "I said, you two are both highly contagious! Therefore, you cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to interact with the other Arrancar. We could have a pandemic on our hands… I'll have to call everyone in and have them immunized! This is awful! Anyway, I'll have somebody sent by with your meals and a few changes of clothes." With that, he slammed the door.

Nnoitra watched him go. He then got back under the covers and promptly fell asleep.

Szayel, meanwhile, was already showered, changed and standing in the throne room, speaking to Aizen. He bowed cordially when the man acknowledged him and stepped a little closer.

"Szayel, what is it you have to tell me?" the Espada made a conscious effort not to shudder as he relived that awful realization; that he'd been breathing _flu air_… _ew, germs…_and spoke up, inclining his head. This was what he was born to do—a spark of happiness lit his soul—he probably looked just like House.

"Well, you see, Aizen-sama, two of the Espada have come down with a contagious virus. It is my opinion that allowing them to attend meetings or in any other way taking them out of quarantine would cause a massive pandemic, quite possibly fatal as none of the Arrancar have been immunized." He glanced once at the man's eyes, then cast his gaze respectfully downward.

"And what are you asking me?" Aizen took a sip of tea and fixed his gaze on his subordinate. "To take them under you care?" Szayel nodded.

"Also, sir, it would be wise to have the rest of the occupants of Las Noches immunized. The injection is almost painless, and wouldn't take very much time or money per person." He paused. "In the World of the Living, influenza virus is the sixth leading cause of death. It is very dangerous."

Aizen hummed for a second, deep in thought. "They would be under your care."

"Whenever I would be needed, sir… though I have to admit that a virus like influenza must be allowed to run its course, I would be providing any help they might need." He bowed. Aizen took a moment to contemplate before nodding.

"You may have full rein with them, Szayel, and go ahead with the immunizations. When can I expect my full ten Espada back?"

"In…maybe a week, sir." With that, Szayel vanished.

Meanwhile…

Nnoitra shot up in bed, his face dripping sweat. "Wh-wha-what the hell?!" he glanced around the room. "Where's the ship? Where's the crew? Where's the Trip?" Beside him in the floor, Halibel sat up and glared.

"What is it with you and three in the morning?"

"The Trip!" he jumped up, waving his arms frantically as he dashed across the room to his window. "Don't tell me you didn't see it! It was right—" Halibel threw the glass of water from earlier in his face. Nnoitra blinked.

"What the hell am I doing up?"

"Your fever's probably just passed a hundred five Fahrenheit," she replied, absently handing him a towel and the thermometer.

"Which means…?"

"It's the point at which one's sanity boils off like water," Halibel remarked. "Which means that if we don't get it down, you'll keep having strange dreams." Nnoitra glared at her over the edge of the towel.

"It wasn't a 'strange dream'," he said.

"Oh?"

"It was a nightmare. Aizen was the captain of this ship, and Barragan was the first mate… and then we got caught in this big ol' pile of seaweed. We thought it was just seaweed. But it wasn't! It was a net! There was this thing called a Trip that pulled the ship down—it was really ugly, and it ate Tosen, and—anyway, everybody was in the dream. Even a couple of your Fraccion. They were pirates." Intrigued, Halibel glanced up from the thermometer she'd managed somehow to hold in his mouth.

"What about me?"

"You were the Trip."


	6. Chapter 6

"So then, what do you have so far?" Aizen now stood beside Szayel in his lab, watching as the scientist inspected the results of some tests he'd done earlier. Something had told him that maybe he'd need to keep checking on Nnoitra, and since it was so much fun to see the man squirm, he couldn't resist. But these results were far from what he'd expected. "Szayel?" asked Aizen again. "What's wrong?"

Shaking his head as if to clear it, Szayel glanced up from the pages. "Well… these results don't look good. It seems that Nnoitra's influenza has weakened his immune system and caused him contract an even worse human sickness." He read over the numbers again, hoping they'd changed somehow. He was _not_ prepared for this.

"What sickness?"

"Pneumonia," he replied worriedly. "It's a very fast-spreading and sometimes contagious disease, much like influenza but worse. It causes the lungs to fill with fluid—both of his lungs, in this case, inducing coughing spells and strangling the victim. The bacteria run up the body's temperature and cause intense muscle pain. Once the fever gets high enough, the bacteria multiply rapidly and there's almost nothing that can be done."

"And is this possible in Arrancar?"

Sighing, he began gathering up bottles of medicine, syringes and the like. "Yes, sir. But, hopefully, Nnoitra's immune system is at least strong enough that it hasn't gotten that bad."

Hope just doesn't buy much these days.

By the time Szayel had gotten to Nnoitra's room, he could already sense that something was wrong… as if the loud coughing that he could hear through the door wasn't enough. He pulled on a surgical mask and stepped inside to find Nnoitra sitting on the edge of his bed, long legs splayed in opposite directions, coughing violently into a handkerchief. The cloth, when he pulled it away from his mouth to curse Szayel and all medicine, was halfway soaked in red. He glanced at Halibel, who shook her head when he met her gaze questioningly. He could already tell that this was far worse than he was prepared to find.

"How long…?"

"The past three hours." She stood and crossed the room, taking the extra mask he gave her and helping him set up his equipment. "Why the sudden change in symptoms?" Szayel's expression went pale and blank as he pressed a hand to Nnoitra's forehead. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Have you been checking his temperature?" he picked up the digital thermometer, thought better of it and pulled an old-fashioned mercury-filled one from his bag, slipping it into Nnoitra's mouth as Halibel shook her head.

"It's no good. He has a fever, but it's been steady for a few hours now. You said yourself it would break soon..." pausing, she glanced at the silver liquid inside the thermometer. "Do you think this development will make it worse?"

"I _know_ it will," he grumbled. "Nnoitra's weakened state has caused him to contract double pneumonia. It's bacterial, and so his body will try to cook it out..." as he spoke, the mercury suddenly began rising quickly. Nnoitra's eyes closed as the liquid passed 105 degrees, and he murmured something incoherent before lying down. Sighing, Szayel pulled the thermometer back out and cleaned it off. It was going to be a miracle if he lived.

"Szayel, how bad is it?" Though it seemed like a stupid question, he knew exactly what Halibel was asking him. "Is he...?"

"There's still a chance." he didn't like having to force that out, as if it were a lie. "But the chance is very slim. He'll have to be constantly watched, and his fever will keep spiking. Right now we need to cool him down..." thinking for a second, he went into the bathroom and started messing with the taps.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm running some cold water," he replied. "Look, I have to go get some ice. The only way we're going to take the edge off that fever is by getting him really cold... I'll be right back. Why don't you..." he paused. "Never mind. I'll call someone."

"What?"

"Well..." Szayel glanced back. "If you could go ahead and strip him down and get him into the cold water, it would help. The longer that fever stays up, the more damage it causes." He was surprised when she nodded assent, pausing with one hand on the door. "You will?"

"Of course." She met his gaze. "It's my duty to make sure he stays alive, is it not? Therefore, I should be doing everything in my power to make sure Jiruga-san pulls through." She paused, glancing up from Nnoitra and meeting his gaze. "You should hurry up with the ice, if it's so badly needed." He nodded and left, leaving her to tug Nnoitra's uniform off and somehow drag him into the bathroom, settling him under the running cold water with a white cloth across his face.

She jerked it off a second later, after seeing it reminded her of a funerary shroud. Sighing, Halibel wrung the cloth out and placed it against his neck. There were traces of drying blood around Nnoitra's mouth and some of it was splattered on his bare chest from the fits of coughing. He was deathly pale, his eyes not just shut but heavy-lidded as if he might never open them again. Under the eyelids, she knew, his almost-pretty narrow, dark-brown eyes were glassy and overbright. She stared, morbidly fascinated.

She'd seen people who were close to death, but always before in combat. People who'd chosen to give their lives for something. They had sometimes been happy, even, grinning up at the clear pure-black sky as their eyes clouded over and then slipped closed, laughing or speaking of how well they'd done, how many they'd killed before being cut down. They had, at least, made the decision to rush in, blades drawn and held high. Maybe not even with pride, but at least by their will.

This was so very different.

This... she glanced back at Nnoitra and shuddered. She'd never thought anything would affect her this strongly. But here was a person who was near death. There was no reason for his pain at all. He had not wounded someone to deserve a wound, and he had not known that the pain would even be there. He certainly had not possessed any will for this. That would have been impossible. And he was most definitely not laughing, nor even speaking.

He was silent in unimaginable agony, eyes shut tight, waiting for his body to give up and fail so that he would be freed from the pain. She'd never seen anyone like this before. It was thoroughly disturbing. She felt something tighten in her throat as the realization hit that he might never wake up. However much they were at odds, he did not deserve this. No one did.

But he might succumb, he might die if she didn't do something. Tears pricked in her eyes as she stared at his face, now flushed with fever. She found herself trying to memorize his features, just in case, and the reality of what was ahead—save only a _miracle_—felt like a gunshot that pierced and tore straight through. The tears spilled over, and she brushed them away when she heard a knock on the door. There were a few tiny, damp spots on her collar. Nothing noticeable. She opened the door to find Szayel carrying a comically large bag of ice. He leaned forward and met her gaze.

"Halibel, your eyes are red," he observed. "Something wrong?"

"No," she replied. "Nnoitra is a terrible housekeeper, and I happen to be allergic to dust."


	7. Chapter 7

*bows, ducking head into collar* Eh, heh... pinaprincess, Rayna Lissesul, Artificial Life Creator, Aly Sky, and xXAngelofDemiseXx ... sorry about not writing you in. I meant to, but then we had a power outage, Mila Rose accidentally lit the curtains on fire with a candle, Szayel's bioweapons got loose... anyway, poorly written excuses aside_thank you guys all so much_. This is, to let you all know, the second-to-last chapter.

~::0::~

Szayel glanced up at Halibel as he rearranged some of the ice. At the moment, they would probably have to keep Nnoitra like this until they noticed some changes for the better. Namely, the fluid in his lungs that refused to get gone...and probably wouldn't for quite some time. He sighed as she met his gaze.

"Is he any better?" He noticed that she was a little pale and remembered that it was the middle of the night, and she hadn't been getting any sleep.

"Yes, in that his fever has stabilized for now. It hasn't broken by any means, and it will start spiking again in a few hours. But it won't get as high as it would if we'd left him untreated." Pausing, he took a moment to uncap the syringes he'd brought with him, one by one. The first contained something for his cough, to dry up and heal his lungs. The other two, respectively, were fever-reducers and a new substance he'd learned about through research.

It was, supposedly, a kind of antibiotic. He'd added more than that to be safe, but his new chemical was the base. "These should help immensely," he said, swiping Nnoitra's upper arm with antiseptic.

"What are 'those'?"

"Salicylic acid, for one." He held up the first syringe, flicking and squirting out any air bubbles. "In the World of the Living, they call it 'aspirin'. This would be ibuprofen, but an Arrancar's system isn't built to handle that drug. It should help his fever." He slid the needle into Nnoitra's skin. "The next one is a cocktail of several drugs that work together. It should help dry out his lungs so that we don't have to go in and mess around with them to clear them out, and hopefully help his body to heal them faster. And this last one—" a third tiny drop of blood appeared on Nnoitra's pale skin as he recapped the needles—"is mainly a human drug called Penicillin. It will kill the germs that are causing him to have these new symptoms."

He wiped the blood away and dabbed on a little more antiseptic, closing the black medical bag, picking it up and standing. Sighing, he handed a small grayish device over to Halibel. "When his fever goes back up, then I'll need to administer more Penicillin to kill the bacteria. Press this button here, and I'll be there within ten minutes." He sighed tiredly. "And if—Aizen forbid—anything else should go wrong, the same applies. I'll be here."

With that, he sauntered out the door, presumably to get some sleep. Halibel sat with her back against the edge of the bathtub, glancing over at Nnoitra every so often to see if there had been any change. Blissfully, there was not. At first, anyway.

The medicine worked fine for all of two hours, settling Nnoitra's fever to a manageable 103 Fahrenheit and at the very least calming his urge to cough, though it still looked like it hurt for him to breathe. Almost exactly at the two-hour mark, however, the effects wore off and Nnoitra's breath hitched painfully, his temperature shooting up within minutes. Halibel felt her vision cloud over, sitting dead-still holding the digital thermometer Szayel had left. The numbers read 108.43. And, she was sure, climbing.

_He's going to die. _She felt herself start crying, and no matter what she tried she couldn't stop those damnable tears from brimming in her eyes and spilling over. They slipped down scalding-hot, catching in her bangs, distorting the numbers on the thermometer's readout, leaving dark spots on her collar and skirt. _He's going to die, right here and now. He's never going to wake up!_

There was suddenly a hard, cold lump in Halibel's throat. It made it hard to breathe as she desperately tried to bring Nnoitra's temperature down, drenching his face and head in the cold water and holding ice to the insides of his wrists, his throat and chest in an attempt to stop the fever. Tears were still flowing from her eyes when Szayel arrived, shining on the buckles on her collar and mixing with the water she'd ended up soaked in by now. She lowered her head in shame, but he saw them anyway.

"You're crying," he observed.

"Yes," she choked, tucking her head further down into her high collar. "I am."

Szayel blinked, chalking the tears up to an involuntary response to being without sleep and under stress. He administered a bigger dose of the medicine needed, Penicillin, before considering the Espada's fever and giving him more aspirin as well. Then he recapped the syringe he'd used and left. Nnoitra's breathing evened out again, and Halibel sat back down against the bathtub, sighing in relief. Her vision cleared as the lump in her throat abruptly vanished, her tears stopping as suddenly as they'd started. She swiped at her eyes, wincing because they felt sore from being open so long. Hopefully she'd get to sleep soon, because she'd been up for more than three days straight. Hopefully Nnoitra would wake up soon and be okay.

Unfortunately, it was a good week before his eyes could stay open or hers could stay closed. The next morning, Nnoitra was taken out of the ice water since his fever was slowly but surely getting lower, almost breaking. However, he was still weak, and the fever wasn't gone yet. His lungs were still in bad shape, and if he wasn't watched, it was a sure bet that he'd be even worse off than before. So, of course Halibel stayed up. After all, it was her job, right? Make sure he didn't die.

And every once in a while, she was rewarded for this job. Nnoitra's eyes would flutter open, not as heavy-lidded as before. He'd be helped up and sit still for a moment before asking in a ragged vice for water, taking a sip and coughing as the cold liquid hit his raw, sore throat. Then he'd lie back down and fall asleep.

Halibel would stare at the glass of water that was never even close to half-empty and sigh worriedly, then push such reprehensible behavior from her mind and check the time to see when his next round of medicine would be. And sometimes, though she'd never admit it, she had Tesla go down to the kitchen and fetch some hot tea, because it didn't hurt his throat as much. In this way, Nnoitra was steadily getting better.

However, Halibel couldn't help wondering how this was affecting her sanity. She was just supposed to be doing her job. Because nobody else would take the job, or nobody else could be trusted. One or the other; exactly which one was foggy after so long without sleep. However, the fact remained: nothing more, nothing less, just make sure he pulled through and was back at meetings in a week, give or take.

But nobody had told her to stay up with him even when somebody volunteered to watch him for her, not ever sleeping for fear that he'd get worse and refusing food that she never seemed to be hungry for. She did it anyway. Nobody told her to take his hand when Szayel wasn't looking and let it tighten around hers as he gave Nnoitra's shots.

Certainly, it was not Halibel's job to sit by his side when he started coughing in his sleep, stroking his back and trying to soothe the fits away so that he wouldn't hurt anymore. Nobody told her to whisper that it would be alright when he woke up sometimes—his gaze wild with the nightmares that never seemed to stop, so scared and sick and out of it that he didn't even know her—and stared up into her eyes with a look of pure terror and pain. Nobody had briefed her, saying that she should gently rub his shoulders and back and tell him everything was okay. She did it anyway, every single time he woke up scared and looked at her like that.

This being _Nnoitra_ that she was dealing with, she would have loved to make it as unpleasant an experience as possible. It just wouldn't happen. She was compelled to do those things, as if it were second nature. Part of life. Nobody told her—and this was the most important thing—nobody had _ever_ told Halibel to _cry_ over him..

So why had she? She'd never cried before in her life, for _anyone._ It wasn't an option to admit that it had anything to do with emotion, but it was definitely not sleep deprivation. There was something there, something very different. A fact she would ignore if it drove her insane, rather than admit. At first.

By the middle of the week, though, any other conclusion seemed impossible. She was fighting the truth with everything she had to give at this point, and hoping that soon Nnoitra would get better. Of course, the reason would have to be so that she wouldn't have to look at his ugly mug anymore. She refused to admit that she could possibly care for his well-being. He was _Nnoitra_, after all. Chauvinistic, cruel, vulgar, really cute with his eyes closed and his hands clasped hers as he slept—ahem. That is, a jerk of the highest caliber.

Thankfully, by the end of the week, the flu and pneumonia were gone for good. Once Nnoitra's fever had broken—around "dawn" on Wednesday—things had gotten better at an amazing rate. That Saturday morning Halibel made sure he was coherent and left as soon as possible. She fully intended to take a long, hot shower, crawl into bed, and sleep for the next few days. Whatever Nnoitra did was none of her concern, so long as he was breathing by the next meeting. Congratulating herself on regaining some measure of sanity, Halibel made a quick right to turn onto the hall for her domain.

However, Nnoitra was not to be gotten rid of so easily, even if he wasn't actually following her along. A small tickle in her throat caught her attention just as it triggered a fit of the dry, wracking coughs that had started this whole mess. She clapped both hands across her mouth, horrified. Too late. They'd been ignored all week—a cough here, a sneeze there, chills that she'd written off as her wet uniform since she hadn't the time to change. _A horrible taste in my mouth_, she thought. By the time she could stop coughing, she was leaning against a wall, sides heaving, her throat raw.

_The Espada Dos does not get sick_, Halibel reminded herself. The symptoms she was feeling right now were guilt-driven sympathy pains and would wash off in the shower... at least, she hoped so. She'd hate to be as sick as Nnoitra had been. Unfortunately, there was no such luck to be had. She'd barely stepped out of the shower when her breath hitched and she started coughing again. Her lungs began to ache.

_But at least Nnoitra's okay...._ frowning, Halibel silenced her inner voice with a fit of coughing. She'd much rather listen to that, and plot ways to murder Nnoitra. Curse the stupid schmuck who gave her this with everything under the sun...


	8. Chapter 8

A few days later on the other end of the wing, Nnoitra was sitting in the lounge with a cup of hot coffee. It felt unimaginably good just to be able to come to breakfast like everyone else, and he wasn't wasting a second. The others were at the least happy he was back—since Barragan had nobody to talk to and nobody else wanted to talk to Barragan. Which was what he was doing right now.

"So then what happened?" he asked gruffly.

"Well, it wasn't really as bad as everybody thinks." He'd since decided never to admit to being that sick, to anyone, ever. "I just slept a lot... maybe it was poison and not some sickness, hey?" Barragan nodded, one brow quirking up. Nnoitra ignored it.

"Yes, maybe somebody slipped you something."

"And the person they sent to take care of me—you don't know her," he said when Barragan started to say something. That was another facet that would forever remain a secret. "Anyway, what a world-class, grad-A b****. She was rough with me, she hardly did anything and ya wanna know the worst part? The second I was awake this morning, she left. Said she had to sleep. Like she hadn't been gettin' a full 8 hours every night while I was on my own deathbed—sometimes I'd dream about her helpin' me, but that's about it. Little slacker—"

"Stop that, you're lying."

"Huh?"

Barragan stood from his place across the table from Nnoitra, setting down his coffee cup. "You're lying. Halibel was the person taking care of you. We didn't see her at meetings, so we asked. And it was much worse than you make it out to be," he continued, "We know because we've all seen your medical chart by now. You can't be gone for so long without it causing a ruckus. Besides that, we all had to get shots so that we wouldn't catch what you had, so there's no doubt it was highly dangerous. You were nearly dead. From what Szayel told everyone, you _would_ be right now if not for her."

Nnoitra blinked, dumbfounded. "Wh... What?" He suddenly felt betrayed. If everyone knew...

"However I may feel about you other Espada, the truth is the truth." Barragan caught his gaze and held it. "We all trust Szayel's word. And according to him, she stayed up with you for more than a week straight. She wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, and by the time it was over, she was sicker than you were, maybe even worse—and still is because nobody will go near her domain after seeing how sick you got. She sent her own Fraccion away so that they wouldn't catch it. You want to say anything about your doctor, while you're at it? Because he stayed on-call for you at all hours of the night, on the off-chance you might get a little worse."

Nnoitra was thunderstruck. He wasn't sure what was more disturbing: the fact that the others knew all about him being so sick, or the fact that they knew he'd relied on a _woman_. He might never live this down. But all the same... something struck a chord in him. _As sick as you were, maybe even worse,_ Barragan had said. He shuddered. He wouldn't wish something like _that_ on his worst enemy.

"You should help her," Barragan said gruffly. "We can hear her coughing at night, Stark and I. The walls there are very thick to muffle sounds for us, and yet we can still hear her. Szayel comes by every once in a while, but it's only the first sickness you had, so he can't help much. He won't stay around to watch her, and he's saying she may have the second sickness now too." He paused to glare at Nnoitra. "Fair, is fair. At the very least, you owe her an apology and your thanks. I know you didn't thank her."

Any other time, Nnoitra would have quickly shot back something about Barragan losing his sanity with age and ignored him until he was actually ordered to do something. Now he left the lounge immediately, barely daring to glare over his shoulder at the old man.

He was right about the fact that Nnoitra should thank her for her trouble. After all, he'd had a feeling that Halibel had sacrificed quite a bit. His ego just wouldn't let him admit it, especially not all those things he half-remembered. Poking open the door to her domain, he found her room and stuck his head in.

"Hey, you there?"

There was a little movement from the bed that he couldn't really see in the dim light. Halibel sat up and blinked at him; her eyes were a little off-focus. "May I help you?"

"Yeah. I came to say... uh... thanks for everything." He shuffled his bare feet—his shoes were sitting at the front door, which meant his hakama swung loose like everyone else's, and it felt strange. He took the opportunity to give Halibel a quick once-over, just to check. He felt a pang of guilt as he realized it was pretty bad.

Her face was flushed, her eyes cloudy and a little glassy. There were smears of red in various places, and her lips were stained a dark rust. She'd been coughing up blood all this time, he thought to himself. He knew how painful that was. Her eyes cleared a bit and she managed to catch his gaze. "Um, and, I'm sorry."

"Well, thank you for being so polite," she replied. "Now go before you catch this all over a—" suddenly Nnoitra got a firsthand idea of what his coughing had looked and sounded like. He felt his eyes widen in shock as Halibel's entire body convulsed, bending fully in half, her eyes clamped shut in pain. He stared at the bright-red spots that flecked the back of her hand when she finally looked up at him, embarrassed. "Before you catch this all over again. Have a nice day, Jiruga-san." She lay back down, tugging the covers up around her and turning away from him, already asleep.

Something in the back of his mind told him that maybe he should check her temperature, and he found a thermometer in a first-aid kit in her medicine cabinet. Nnoitra inspected for a moment it before slipping the thing into her mouth.

_105.5F._

He sighed, wetting and wringing out a washcloth from the bathroom and pressing it to her forehead, letting the cool seep out and then running it under cold water again. Over and over, until her fever broke sometime around three in the morning. As he was musing about the irony of that, Halibel's eyes opened. She glanced up at him, brows furrowing together.

"N... Nnoitra-san?"

"In the flesh," he replied. She sat up and stared at him, blinking as if trying to make him disappear. He handed her a glass of water, thinking to himself that he _definitely_ knew how she was feeling right about now.

"You... um, you should drink that," he explained. "You know, fluids and all." She nodded and took a few sips, nearly choking at how much it hurt to have cold water hit her throat. Remembering how Nnoitra's face had twisted up when he'd tried to drink, she grimaced as she got the full brunt of _why._

"Why are you here, Nnoitra-san? You hate me." At the moment, he couldn't think of a good answer. But he knew one.

"I don't hate you," he smiled. "I dislike you. Greatly. But you're too weak to take care of yourself. You can't stand to drag anybody else into your problems, to the point that you won't even let your Fraccion step in. Stark would have fallen asleep, Ulquiorra flatly refused, and everyone below Fifth is too much of a _baka_ to be of any help." Nnoitra grinned when she recognized her own words and glared at him. "You really oughta' lie down so you can sleep, you know."

"I have to ask you something first."

"Ask away." He settled back against the chair he'd been sitting in, watching her.

"Ah... why did you even come here? I know what you said, but you could have just stayed away. You would have, before. But..." she trailed off, one hand reflexively going to her throat. It was hitting her worst there, he thought, and winced at how rough her voice sounded when he listened. "...Why?"

"Because you cared for me," he replied offhandedly. "I owed you. And besides... after all that happened, I just..." there was a long pause as he took a deep breath to steady his nerves. "After what happened, I couldn't stand to think you might be sick because of me. Or hurting. I mean, you didn't ask for that. I don't wanna see you in pain, you know?"

"Neither would I... like to see you in pain, Nnoitra." She chose her words carefully, and he couldn't help but pick up the fact that there was no _–san_ attached to his name. "This is very strange. Usually, we both are at odds with one another."

He smirked. "Nice work, Captain Obvious. While you're at it, this whole 'black sky' thing... I mean, what is up with that?" He let his expression relax and become more serious. "You know... the humans... they call this _ai_ or _quiero_. Love." She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"What?"

"Love. You know, when two people don't like to see each other in pain. And so they do something about it... like you did for me. And like I'm doing for you."

"So..." she paused. "You mean to say that we are in love, Nnoitra?"

"You keep leaving the honorific off the end of my name. That's enough proof for me." Nnoitra reached out, stroking the side of her face. He grinned when she didn't jump back, almost leaning into the touch. He normally didn't like Halibel, but she normally didn't act like this. "Besides, after everything that happened... wouldn't it have to be true?"

"I suppose so," she said. He laughed, leaning forward and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Now lie down and go to sleep. Your fever's just broken, and you need your rest." She nodded, curling up under the blankets and reaching out to hold onto his hand.

"I... love you, Nnoitra." He smiled.

"I love you too, Halibel. Good night."

    

Well, that's the story. More than seven thousand words' worth of romance. Thank you for staying with it all the way to the end. If you reviewed or added this story to a list, you have my undying gratitude.

I worry about it being kind of sappy or overdone—never written romance before, for the obvious reason that it makes the perfect blackmail should my fellow Espada find out. Especially after the whole fiasco with Szayel and the flour bomb...

However, considering all the reviews I've gotten—and this is huge, considering most of my stories only have one—I have to ask your opinion as the reader. If you review—and I'm not saying you have to or should if you weren't going to, but if you do, tell me whether I should write more romance, what I need to work on. I'm taking requests, too, for any genre.

And if you're one of those people who read this on a whim, and doesn't really like the Espada because you think we're evil... well...

I hope I changed your mind.

--Halibel


End file.
